We are republishing the Political Despair and Black Humour article by Maxim Evstropov, published on syg.ma. It's also translated into Azerbaijani on our website. The text is followed by personal remarks of the translator on how Maxim's analysis reflects the political realities in Azerbaijan.
Political Despair and Black Humour
Political despair is a situation of political impossibility: no hopes or illusions, no projects, no future, no way out, maximum alienation. This is reminiscent of the “bare life” as a state of biopolitical exception in Agamben’s interpretation [1]. However, it could just as well be called “political death” (bare life is political death). At the same time, and in a certain dialectical manner, it is also a “sickness unto death, ” as Kierkegaard characterized despair: the impossibility of death (while death is the desired end to the endless) [2].
This is the political position of an animal, or a corpse (when you see everything through the eyes of a corpse), or, better said, a corpse of an animal. For example, a dead dog.
Just as the “bare life” in the biopolitical state of modernity is not something special, exceptional — but an exception that has become the norm — political despair is also not something out of the ordinary. This despair is total: it’s a sort of inescapable background of any action, the back thought of any other thought. It can be ignored, it can be lived with and settled in — but it cannot be overcome by avoiding it or opposing it with something positive (because it’s impossible to find anything purely positive in the totality of despair).
The possibility of overcoming the despair lies rather in despair itself: one must despair to the end (although perhaps there is no end). This was also Kierkegaard’s recipe (or one of his author-characters): if you are in despair, it means that you have not yet despaired to the end.
One must despair in order to act — and vice versa. Thus political death becomes the starting point of political struggle. Marx describes the situation of the proletariat as desperate — but it is precisely in this situation that revolutionary action begins. The lower classes can not (bear any longer). Exploitation and inequality can be eliminated by those who have nothing to lose but their chains [3]. To revolutionize the proletariat means to awaken in them the consciousness of revolutionary despair. To despair oneself and others: this is the meaning of Benjamin’s formula of opposing the real state of exception to the state of exception that has become the norm [4].
One of the key factors in this transformation of despair into action (or perhaps the transformation of despair into itself) is humour. When there is nothing to lose, and at the same time nothing to do, the only thing left is to laugh. A dead animal laughs. The laughter of a political corpse is, for example, the laughter of a dead dog.
Laughter is affective, but it is such an affect that is both inside and outside the situation. Laughter that is infectious, sudden, uncontrollable is inseparable from the bodily involvement in what is happening — and at the same time takes one outside. Things shaking with laughter go beyond their destined boundaries.
In the situation of political despair, humour becomes black. It does not justify or legitimize political death in any way, and does not present it as anything other than complete absurdity. Nevertheless, it can be associated with a certain strange (and sometimes scary) satisfaction.
So, the “way out” of despair lies in a paradox: to get rid of despair, one must despair. But this paradox also closes the situation of political despair into something like a vicious circle. Action does not give hope and does not liberate, but modifies and multiplies despair.
Humour, again, is the model of this paradoxical ambiguity. It allows us to cope with the situation — there’s certainly something therapeutic in humour. But this medicine-pharmakos is also a poison: a remedy for despair that feeds on despair and infects with it. Black humor lives on political death, parasitizes on it and together with it constitutes a kind of general symptom.
[September 3, 2024]
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The text is notes for the conference in Tartu “Humour and Conflict in the Public Sphere”, and was partially used in the presentation: Åsa Harvard Maare, Max Evstropov, “Black humour and political despair: Making politics with the dead”, September 5, 2024.
[1] Giorgio Agamben. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life.
[2] Søren Kierkegaard. The Sickness unto Death [under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus].
[3] Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
[4] Walter Benjamin. Theses on the Philosophy of History [Thesis VIII].I].
Translator's remarks: Despair in Azerbaijan, political corpses and humour.
When I read this small text, I was thinking about Azerbaijan - about the deprived political life here. The phrase "bare life" could be translated into Azerbaijani as simple life, poor life, bare life. But after talking with my intellectual comrade, we decided that the most appropriate translation is deprivation, because the situation in which Azerbaijanis live is political, economic, and intellectual deprivation.
However, the question arises whether, despite these deprivations, Azerbaijanis have not yet suffered from political desperation? I think they did. However, perhaps one of the main reasons why this political desperation does not turn into any political activity is that Azerbaijani society looks at politics from the point of view of dark humour. As mentioned in the translated article, dark humour can have a therapeutic aspect - to face the despair that happens, to grasp it and somehow continue to live. However, humour, satire is not always soothing. Satire and humour also have refutive, revolutionary and subversive aspects.
For example, the most famous example of Azerbaijani political and literary life is the character of Molla Nasreddin. It is no coincidence that the magazine of the same name was edited by Jalil Mammadguluzade, who described the Azerbaijani society in the best way in his work Corpses. Back then, followers of Molla Nasreddin journal opposed and laughed at the religious beliefs and conservative ideas that had a very serious power in the society, and this was quite a provocative activity for their time and context.
Despite their subversive activities, paradoxically, the Molla Nasreddin journal followers also exemplified a soothing tradition of humor. For example, Mozalan film magazine, which was published during the Soviet period, continues to criticize society like followers of Molla Nasreddin journal, but it loses its radical potential because it can no longer laugh at the power. Because the power was in the Soviet government, not in the shortcomings of the society. And thus, humour loses its subversive, revolutionary potential and begins to have a soothing, therapeutic character. Trying to revive the Mozalan film magazine in 2021, several episodes were shot and aired on AzTV [1]. Devoid of satire and humour, the new Mozalan, was doomed to failure.
If we come to the more modern era, the film "Dog", one of the most magnificent films of the independence period, was also written in the absurd genre. It is very interesting that the author skillfully shows how desperate people turn into dogs (literally). It is interesting that in our language the phrase turning to a dog is also used as an aphorism - as a result of anger from helplessness, we turn to a dog and try to bark at others. Speaking of desperation, what is indeed desperate is that this Dog film was never shown on television. Although many wrote that it was banned, the article in the 525th newspaper that I found in the newspaper archives of the National Library of Azerbaijan did not indicate that there was a specific ban [2]. It's just that the film had no luck [3].
Apart from these, if someone asks me to count the most popular shows of the 2000s, the first ones that come to mind are Dolls, Gulp and Zorkhana. But unfortunately, we did not see any of these shows go beyond soothing humor. People watched these shows and cried their day off and then moved on with their lives. Although, for example, the words of Ashig Yadigar's prophetic song on the Gulp program were quite critical: "if the flowers of a foreign garden withered, the only party would be this dear party YAP. I will endure every oppression, I will endure, if you want, try YAP, try YAP." [4]. 20 years have passed, the dog is gone, YAP is gone, and only one power holder remains - Aliyev. And Aliyev fullfils Ashig Yadigar's request and tries every oppression. And we endure.
Today, there are many people who laugh at power in Azerbaijan. For example, youth trolling the government and individual government representatives on social networks, feminist activists laughing at the immoral government leaking information about their personal lives, and Bahruz Samadov, who was recently arrested for treason, trolling the government of Azerbaijan every time he walks in front of the camera are examples of these.
Trolling, or stubbornly laughing in the face of the oppressor, is no longer an indication of opposition, but of a direct refusal. Refusal not only involves opposition, but also shows that the oppressor has no power over the one who refuses. By doing so, it weakens that power [5].
Finally, today the Azerbaijani society is politically dead. They don't have neither the strength nor the ability to resist this evil power. Agamben's state of exception has turned into the norm in Azerbaijan, for example, the land borders of the country remain closed for more than four years, and this is ridiculously explained by the COVID-19 (state of emergency). And the political corpses don't care. They calm down their despair with jokes.
However, not everything is total and complete. There are still people who think differently. They are completely desperate, they have nothing left to lose, not even a sense of humour to calm themselves down. Except laughing in refusal at the authorities and believing that this laughter is the beginning of a new resistance.
Notes:
[2] Şahanə Müşfiq. "Köpək" filminin uğursuz taleyi 525-ci qəzet.-26 fevral.-S.18 http://www.anl.az/down/meqale/525/2020/fevral/205.htm
[5] Bhungalia, Lisa. "Laughing at power: Humor, transgression, and the politics of refusal in Palestine." Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 38, no. 3 (2020): 387-404.
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